The first thing I do is print out and supply the kids with all the previous grades' flashcards and do a quick review of those. This way they have them in their
"toolkit" when making sentences and doing creative activities with the grade two cards.

The flashcards can simply be held up, giving the child the opportunity to
read each one. But if you're looking for a more engaging activity, try
combining the Dolch flashcards with the noun picture flashcards for a variety of
activities (I've listed some suggestions here from simplest to hardest). If
you're printing the cards for one of the higher grades, you should consider
printing the ones for previous grades as well -- the Dolch words are cummulative
and you'll be able to make more complex sentences.

ACTIVITY ONE: Find the card

Using the flashcards you've worked on so far, have an adult or older child arrange the flashcards to form a sentence or phrase.

Read the sentence with/to the child

Remove one of the dolch words from the sentence and put it back in the
pile (you may want to make the pile smaller in the beginning to make the
activity easier).

Give the pile to the child and have them find the correct card to
place back in the sentence.

Re-read the sentence.

ACTIVITY TWO: Which word makes sense?

have an adult arrange the flashcards to form a sentence, leaving one card out.

read the incomplete sentence with/to the child.

present between 2 and 5 cards to the child (one of them should make the sentence complete)

have the child chose which is the correct card

re-read the sentence with the card chosen. Talk about whether it makes sense or not.

ACTIVITY THREE: Make phrases and sentences.

Give the children all of the flash cards you have learned so far.

Have them rearrange the flash cards in different ways to make phrases or sentences.

Encourage them to print their sentences and phrases onto a piece of paper. You can make simple phrases like "morning and night" or full sentences like "My best friend and I
like to play ball."

Rather than printing the sentences you can just have fun organizing and reorganizing the cards during free time.

ACTIVITY FOUR: Modified "go fish".

Give the children all of the flash cards they have learned so far.

Give each child 10 cards at random.

At the beginning of each turn, allow the child to draw a card.

Rather than matching pairs as in regular "go fish", allow each child to form phrases or sentences from the cards in their hand. If they cannot make a phrase they draw another card
and then their turn is over and the next person gets to play. In this case I wouldn't let the kids ask their opponent for a card because there are too many to remember... just allow them
to draw a card.

The game ends when one player has used ten cards (or the number of your choice) to make phrases or sentences.

Option: You can allow the children to add to their own sentences... ex: If they make the sentence "I like to play" they could later add "with the ball" to make the larger
sentence "I like to play with the ball". This makes the game a little more challenging.

ACTIVITY FIVE: Flashcard concentration (modified memory game)

Grade two or three is the right time to start this (I find grade one too
early... this age prefers challenges like activity one or two)

Print two copies of one, two or three of the flashcard worksheets (no more than three or it becomes too chalenging).

Arrange all the cards face down on the table.

Flip two cards over -- if they match you score a point. If they don't match, flip them back to be face down on the table.

Take turns until you miss (don't get a match), then it's the other person't turn.

NOTE: make sure the child reads the word out loud before they score their point!